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Oncology

Managing pain in oncology

02 March 2020
Clinical Focus
02 March 2020
Volume 2 · Issue 3

Abstract

Pain is one of the most common symptoms in cancer and almost all patients experience pain at various stages of the disease. Despite the high prevalence of these symptoms and various international guidelines that are in place for management, there is still a gap between the pain management approaches and achieving satisfactory pain relief. A holistic approach is required for effective management, which not only includes the pain-relieving medications but should also contain various complementary procedures to treat cancer pain and improve patients' quality of life.

Cancer diagnosis and progression significantly reduces quality of life, emotionally, mentally and physically. Patients are often burdened by the severe side effects of toxic chemotherapy that impair patient quality of life (Wagland et al, 2016). Of the various symptoms related to cancer and its treatment, pain is one of the most underrated and undertreated (Torresan et al, 2015).

Effective management of pain in oncology enhances quality of life, improves adherence to treatment, and reduces the utilisation of healthcare facilities (Basch et al, 2016). There has been an improvement in the quality of pharmacological pain management, however, medication proportional to pain intensity is still not received by approximately one-third of patients (Greco et al, 2014).

The severity of pain varies with the stage of the disease and the type of cancer. Squamous cell carcinoma of the lung rarely presents with pain, whereas squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity almost always present with pain as the initial symptom (Schmidt et al, 2010). Despite years of research and technological advancement in understanding, detection and treatment, the progress related to cancer pain is slow and inadequate (Chwistek, 2017).

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Oncology
pain management
oncology pain
symptom relief
pain relief
holistic care